When a GaN nanowire LED is operated at high current density the light output of the LED will change from spontaneous to stimulated emission. That is, the nanowire LED will become a nanowire laser. Stimulated emission (lasing) in GaN nanowires was reported in an invited paper at ICMOVPE XIV (Fourteenth International Conference on Metalorganic Vapor Phase Epitaxy) Metz, France, 1-6 Jun. 2008, paper Tu-I.1, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Arrays of phase-coupled nanowires have been proposed. Two such examples are discussed in J. J. Pan, et al., Proc. SPIE 1476, 157 (1991) and J. Banerji, et al., Appl. Optics 44, 3364 (2005). However, research into phase-coupled arrays of (non-nanowire) semiconductor lasers has been thus far largely theoretical. One article shows lasers experimentally limited to simple longitudinal-mode control on laser bars with widths on the order of hundreds of microns. E. Kapon et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 44, 157 (1984).
Previous approaches to phase coupling of nanowire lasers have used external (non-integrated) components. This can tend to make the overall system prone to drift and instability.
It would be considered a step forward in the art to provide a phase coupling pathway that is robustly integrated into the laser structure and/or that promotes improved stability of operation. It would further be considered a step forward in the art to provide for integration of components that allow active control of phase changes in light transmitted between laser devices in an array.